Sense & Nonsense About Prayer
What It Is, What It's Not, How It Works
5. Prayer Has To Be In The King James
Utter nonsense. Our black preachers struggling through all of
these “these” and “thous,” butchering the poetry of 17th century
English—a syntax that requires quite a bit of erudition to
reproduce on the fly. Meanwhile, in most white churches the
pastor talks to God like He’s his buddy. Like He’s Fred. “Well,
Fred, we just love you. Fred we just wanna thank you so much for
what You’ve done and what You’re doing, Fred.”
And, you know what? They’re right. Not that God is Fred, but
that God is our Friend. He wants to be our friend, He wants to
be known to us. Not some obscure, abstract concept. A God Up
There Somewhere. That’s nonsense. That’s a song we should never,
ever sing again because it is simply not scriptural.
The Bible teaches us that God dwells within us [John 14:17]. He
is not unknowable. He is not ‘up there.” He’s right here. In
you. In me. We can’t fool Him by putting on a fake accent or
talking in the King James. We can’t hide from His presence by
putting on our Prayer Voice. We should speak to Him
respectfully, sure. But we can use our own words and our own
voice.
Pretending to be someone you are not completely undermines the
effectiveness of your prayer. God knows you. He understand what
you’re saying. God invented language. You can’t trick Him. And
the eloquence of your prayer has absolutely no bearing on the
effectiveness of your prayer.
6. God Always Answers
Jeremiah 7:13-16: And now, because ye have done all these works,
saith the LORD, and I spake unto you, rising up early and
speaking, but ye heard not; and I called you, but ye answered
not; Therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my
name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you
and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. And I will cast
you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even
the whole seed of Ephraim. Therefore pray not thou for this
people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make
intercession to me: for I will not hear thee.
Growing up Pentecostal, I was taught God doesn’t hear the
prayers of sinners. Which is right and wrong. God hears
everything. That’s what “God” means. Saying there’s something
God can’t do limits His omnipotence and confines Him to our
human understanding.
What the Bible means when it suggests God doesn’t hear the
prayers of sinners is that God doesn’t act on their behalf. This
is because the proper way to pray to God is beyond our power or
comprehension. As mortal beings, there is absolutely nothing we,
in and of ourselves, can do to please God or to know God. This
is why Jesus Christ came to us, why He died for us and what He
meant when He said that no one can approach or know God unless
they come through Christ.
Jesus Christ is our intercessor [Romans 8:34]. Which means he
untangles our language, our arrogance. Talking to God is, in and
of itself, pure arrogance, the creation demanding things of the
creator. Jesus runs interference for us, correcting our grammar,
discerning our true intent and knowing our heart. He acts like a
spiritual translator, making sense out of our pitiful rhetoric
and lobbying God on our behalf.
People who do not know Christ, who have rejected Christ—what we
call “sinners,” which, again, is a misnomer since we are all
sinners [Romans 3:23]—do not have access to Christ as an
intercessor and, therefore, God, presumably, doesn’t act on
their behalf.
But, make no mistake, God hears everything. That’s what “God”
means.
7. Yes, No, Wait
God always answers prayer. It’s just that the answers are not
always what we want or expect them to be. But the answers are
always what we need them to be. See, God doesn’t promise us
we’ll always get what we want. He promises to meet our needs.
Strauss suggests there are three basic answers (but God is, of
course, not limited solely to these three): Yes, No and Wait.
Our task is to pray for the wisdom to know His voice when He is
speaking and to know what His answer is.
8. Make It Effective
Don’t compartmentalize. Don’t cordon off certain areas of your
life for God and certain for things you think God can’t handle
or activities you don’t want God to be involved in. That’s
spiritual schizophrenia, you becoming a spiritual Sybil, a
multi-personality disorder where you’re singing praises to God
and cussing out your neighbor with the same mouth [James 3:10].
Where you’re working hard at your church and performing lewd sex
acts with someone you’re not married to at night.
Your behavior, your walk with God, has a direct impact on the
power and effectiveness of your prayers [James 5:16]. I am
regularly and absolutely astonished at the folks I meet who call
themselves “saved” but who behave just like those we call
“sinners.” “Saved” but running to the club. “Saved” but headed
for the liquor store. “Saved” but hooking up at the motel. I’m
astonished.
God hears all prayers. But God responds to the prayers of those
who love Him. Those who keep His commandments. The effectual
fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
9. Make It Plain
Growing up in the orthodox Pentecostal church (by which I mean
we were absolutely convinced we were the only ones going to
heaven. I mean, COGIC was going to hell, Baptists were going to
hell), I was taught that the only evidence of your salvation was
your ability to speak in tongues. Now, mind you, most of those
lovely people I grew up with had no idea what tongues were or
what speaking in tongues was evidence of. It was all or nothing:
speak in tongues or you’re going to hell.
Most of them referrer to tongues as, “The heavenly language.”
Which is patently untrue. Tongues has nothing to do with heaven.
Tongues are, simply, other languages. An unknown tongue is
simply a langue not known to us. It has nothing to do with
heaven, for the things of heaven are yet to be revealed to us.
The Bible teaches us that eye has not seen nor ear heard the
wonderful things God has planned for us [I Cor 2:9]. To suggest
you can, somehow, tap into this stuff contravenes scripture.
When people are speaking in tongues, truly speaking in tongues,
it is, likely, an ancient language and, perhaps, a known one
like Aramaic. The Bible requires that there also be someone with
the gift of interpreting tongues [I Cor 14:6-14], that’s not all
Bubble Bubble Boil and Trouble babba babble going on. God
is not the author of confusion [I Cor 14:33], so when you hear
all these folks going in, presumably speaking in tongues, my
personal guess is perhaps 1 in 1,000 is actually speaking in
tongues. The rest are either rehearsing or repeating something
the Spirit gave them a long, long time ago, or they’re just
faking it.
None of which has any impact, any whatsoever, on prayer.
Praying in tongues does NOT mean your prayer is more effective
than my English prayer. The effectiveness of prayer is not
measured by the eloquence of my speech or even the language I
speak in. The effectiveness of prayer is measured by the quality
of your walk with Jesus Christ.
Unless you’re planning to be a missionary to some remote and
obscure land, tongues is one of the least effective gifts of the
Spirit. Tongues edifies you more than it edifies God who can,
after all, understand not only our language but our motives.
Speaking in tongues is a neat parlor trick, and some wear it
like a badge of honor— I speak in tongues therefore I am better
or holier than you—but, truth is, there’s a laundry list of
spiritual gifts that are more useful to God [I Cor 13:1-3]. I’ve
been baptized in the Holy Spirit. I have spoken in tongues. I do
not speak in tongues with any regularity, but I do under the
anointing of God. But it was not a gift I actively sought. Once
I learned more about God, more about the Bible, I prayed to God
not for tongues but for wisdom [Proverbs 4:1-13]. I told God, at
age 15, “Lord, if I could choose my spiritual gift, I’d rather
have wisdom than tongues.” I said those very words, literally,
to God.
I don’t claim to be wise. I make a lot of mistakes. But I value
learning. I value instruction and teaching. I love logic and
wisdom. I love to sit and listen to elders, old men who love to
be Dad, who love to teach. I am available to God, learning as I
go. I do not claim the gift of wisdom, as I claim no gifts.
Spiritual gifts are from God. They are for His purpose and for
His season. They are, in many ways, like shoes you rent from a
bowling alley. They don’t belong to you. You just wear them for
a little while. You don’t brag about bowling shoes you rented
from the counter. This is, principally, why I greatly disapprove
of people running around calling themselves “Prophet” this or
‘Prophetess” that. No prophet in scripture ever called himself a
prophet—other people called him “prophet” because those gifts
were in effect.
I don’t claim the gift of wisdom, I just work within that gift
and let others make up their own minds about who or what I am.
The Bible teaches us our gifts will make room for us [Proverbs
18:16], which is to say, rather than run around calling yourself
Prophet So And So, just prophecy. Just work. Just do the things
that God has ordained in your life. Let other people decide what
to call you or what hat you should wear and all of that.
10. He Heard You The First Time
I’ve heard many Christians brag about how long they’ve been praying and how hard they’ve been praying, begging, rolling on the floor, slobbering, beseeching God for whatever it is they’re praying about. Well, that's very nice.
God heard you the first time. God doesn’t need all of that snot and slobber. All that yelling. All that tearing of clothes and knocking stuff off of table and all that drama. That’s not for God, that’s for you. That may be what you need to do, what your process needs to be, in order to get you to a place where your flesh, your humanity is humbled enough for your prayer to be effective. I’m not suggesting there’s anything wrong with these prayer-a-thons, but I am suggesting that God doesn’t need it. Maybe you do, maybe we need to certainly get our humanity, our flesh, under submission. But never think it takes 36 hours of hollering to get God’s attention. He heard you the first time.
